Don't You Know There's a War On? (2 page)

OKAY
. Seeing Lomister on the street was like seeing King Kong walk by in his undershorts. Not only was the guy
not
in school, he was standing on a brownstone stoop pressing a doorbell button. The thing was, the way he kept turning around made me think he felt guilty about something.

Lomister was this big galoot, a whole lot taller than the other P.S. 8 schoolteachers, who were all women. Dr. Lomister and the custodian were the only men in our school. Why Lomister was called Doctor, I didn't know. Except it didn't have nothing to do with sick. I mean, the guy should have been a drill sergeant, not a principal. He was that nuts for rules.
All
rules. Let me tell you, that guy knew rules like Brooklyn kids knew how many games the Dodgers were out of first place.

Lomister had rules for everything. No tie, no belt—go sit in his office. Get caught running in the halls or shouting—go sit in his office. Don't pledge allegiance to the flag right—go
sit in his office. Write on the basement floor with chalk—go sit in his office. I don't know. Maybe he just liked company. I mean, nobody wanted to be with him.

See what I'm saying? He was a drill sergeant. Fact, Denny and I used to argue about how come Lomister wasn't in the war.

“Bet you anything he dyed his hair gray so he wouldn't get drafted” was my idea.

“A draft dodger?” Denny said. “Tell me another while that's still warm!”

Denny and me, we talked slang a ton. “Dressing up with words,” my mom called it.

Anyway, I said to Denny, “Could be he's the last son of a last son. They don't have to go.”

“Yeah,” he said, “and your grandma drives a tank. He could've volunteered. My old man's fat, short, and bald, and he's fighting in North Africa right now.”

“Well, maybe Lomister's got flat feet,” I tried. “Flat feet don't march.”

“Money from home, Jackson. He could've joined the navy.”

“You're sitting on a block of ice,” I shot back.

“Hey,” Denny cried, “bet you two Wheaties box tops
and six warm Mason Crows, I know what he is.”

“Okay, what?”

“He's a spy.”

“Tell it to the marines,” I said.

After all, like we both knew, at regular Thursday morning school assemblies, Lomister was always giving these boring speeches that “this war is to protect our country. Because our country is run by rules, not men.” And that we had to follow the rules for “our boys over there.” You know, bunch of patriotic flak.

Thing is, the guy was always making a fuss about how early
he
got to school—before
anyone
, for cripe's sake. I mean, one of his favorite sayings was “You have to start early to bring our boys home early.”

Not even my kid sister, Gloria, who drooled over school so much she got there twenty minutes before I did, arrived before Lomister.

But see, there was Lomister,
not
in school. He was on this stoop. Breaking his own rule about being early! And the way he was acting made me remember what Denny said: Lomister was a spy.

So I ducked behind a car to see what was going on.

THE FRONT DOOR
to the brownstone opened. Whoever opened it stayed in a shadow. That was so suspicious it made me crack my knuckles, which I did whenever I was nervous, though my mother said I'd grow up deformed.

Anyway, next thing, Lomister took off his hat and went inside, shutting the door behind him. Just like the movies.

Now, Lomister went up the front steps—the stoop—that led up to the second floor, where the main door was. But see, next to the stoop was another set of smaller steps that went
down
a little ways to the lowest floor of the house. And next to those steps was a fenced-in place with a steel door that opened to a chute, which was used for delivering coal to the house furnace. Get the picture?

That morning the basement steel door was propped open a couple of inches. Probably because the coal man was coming. The minute I seen that, I knew I could open it more and get into the house and snoop around. And hey, if Lomister was a spy and I could prove it, then Denny and me could tell the FBI. We'd be big-shot heroes with our pictures
a front-page extra on the
Brooklyn Eagle
.

But there was a whole other idea which went through my head faster than the lightning that turned Billy Batson into Captain Marvel. It was this: If I got to school late, I wouldn't be able to take the math test. If I didn't take the math test, my teacher, Miss Gossim, couldn't fail me. If I didn't fail the test, my mom couldn't make me miss Chapter Seven of
Junior G-Men of the Air
.

What's more, as I was standing there trying to make up my mind, it started spitting rain.

All of which should explain how come I ran across the street, climbed over the low railing, and lifted that steel door.

I was going inside.

OKAY
. This chute I told you about was a long U-shaped metal slide, shiny because of all the coal that had slid down. It went from the inside lip of the steel door right on down into the house basement.

So what did I do? I sat on the door frame, legs dangling into the slide, lunch box and satchel under one arm, holding the steel door wide open with my free hand. Then I hitched forward and let go of the door.

Trouble was, the steel door dropped a lot faster than me, so I got me a
bingo-whacko
on the old bean. I'm telling you, sliding down the chute into the basement, I was seeing tons of stars. And all of them were in my head.

Next second I was sitting woozy at the bottom. But light was coming from somewhere, so I could see some stuff. I was in the basement all right. It was long, low, and hot, with stale, dusty air thick as butterscotch pudding. Place smelled rotten too. From garbage, I figured. At the far end were steps leading up, and a weak lightbulb glowing up top.

Next to where I came down was this big, bulky furnace with fat pipes that ran out from its top section. Looked like a giant robot octopus with silver arms. Nearby was a shovel for tossing coal into the firebox. The coal pile was real low. That figured.

Anyway, I was sitting there when the furnace turned on with a roar. Flames licked around the edges of the fire door, throwing out more light. Now I could see stacked cardboard boxes and a workbench with tools. There was an old tennis
racquet too, plus a couple of baseball bats. Also some old trunks and suitcases sitting right next to—get this—a couple of filing cabinets.

Now, them file cabinets wowed me. See, from radio shows, movies, and comic books, I knew that private eyes, superheroes, and secret agents
always
found what they called criminal-eating evidence in file cabinets. So there I was, surer than ever I was in a spy nest.

Soon as I got my head back straight, I stood up from the chute and headed for that flight of steps.

Grabbing the shaky banister, I went up. When I reached the top, I put my ear to the door. Didn't hear nothing. I tried the door handle. Wouldn't budge. Hey, more proof that whoever lived in the house had something to hide, right? Over our place we
never
shut doors. “You want to be private,” we'd say, “go join the army.”

Anyway, the door being shut, I went back down to the basement and tried to think what to do—other than leave. That's when I noticed another door, half the size of an ordinary door. It was set into a wall maybe three feet off the ground. No regular door handle, either, just a latch. Right below were these garbage cans.

I shoved the cans to one side and tried the door. It was
stuck, so I used two hands to yank.
Pop!
It opened! Set into a shaft was a large, tall box with ropes attached to its top. Two more ropes dangled in front of it. A broken dinner plate was lying on the bottom.

What I'd found was a dumbwaiter.

Now, in case you didn't know, dumbwaiters aren't “dumb” like in “stupid,” but “silent.” They were small elevators used for sending food and stuff from one floor of a house to another. Or they hauled garbage to the basement, which explained how come there were garbage cans down there.

Soon as I understood what I'd found, I got thrilled. See, I figured I could get into the box, pull on the ropes, and get into the house above.

Then I thought, Whoa down! I was chasing Nazi spies. Going up could be dangerous. But right off I said to myself, Hey, Howie, what's more important, math test or spy nest?

Being patriotic, I climbed into the box.

LET ME TELL
you something, that dumbwaiter wasn't just tight, it stunk to high heaven. I had to sit with my head against my pulled-up knees, fingers of one hand squeezing my nose while my other hand grabbed hold of the rope dangling in front of me. When I jerked the rope down, the dumbwaiter, with me in it, went up.

Now, I have to admit, I worried what would happen if, you know, the ropes broke or the box got stuck. But guess what? Didn't happen. Every time I yanked the rope down, she went up-sa-daisy.

Sure, there was some squeaking. Nothing loud. And whenever I stopped—and it was hard work, so I stopped tons—it stayed put.

Now, soon as I moved out of the basement, everything went dark.
Super
dark. Then, going higher, I saw light seeping through cracks. I kept pulling the rope, coming to a stop only when—
bam!
—I slammed against something.

In front of me was this square line of light. It looked like a door, so I pushed at it. Wouldn't give. I pushed again. When it still wouldn't budge, I squirmed around, got on my knees. With my body behind me—all seventy pounds—I
shoved. The door burst open so quick I plopped onto the floor.

I was lying there trying to catch my breath when I heard a voice.

“This teacher,” I heard Dr. Lomister saying—because I could be at the North Pole and I'd still know his voice—“this Miss Gossim, she must be immediately fired.”

NOW, TO UNDERSTAND
this story, you have to know right off that, far as I was concerned, the only thing worth going to school for was this Miss Gossim. Veronica Lake? Betty Grable? Lana Turner? Pretty nifty movie stars. But to me, nothing compared to Miss Gossim.

Miss Gossim was what we called a dilly, a dish, an angel-cake package with tutti-frutti icing on top. Full of smiles too. With frilly blond hair, blue-gray eyes, plus lipstick-red lips. There may have been dirt in the world—wasn't a speckle on Miss Gossim. I mean, she wasn't just clean, she glowed. A regular flower. Like the kind which my
class visited on a Brooklyn Botanic Garden field trip.

'Course, she could be strict. No gum chewing. If you were caught chewing, you had to stick the gum on your nose. No note passing. Caught passing a note and she'd read it out loud to the whole class. No writing on your desk neither. Do that and you had to stay after school and get it off. Least her rules made sense, not like Lomister's.

And Miss Gossim liked to laugh a lot. She had one of those laughs that made you join in. Or she said things like “Oh, let's forget long division and tell jokes.” She would too.

“Knock knock.”

“Who's there?”

“Amos.”

“Amos who?”

“Amos-quito bit me.”

Miss Gossim was kind, always asking us about our military dads, brothers, sisters, moms. You know, where they were. How they were doing. She even kept a map in the classroom to show it. All them teachers did that, only, see, Miss Gossim wasn't just doing it—she
cared
. So, natch, we told her everything. I mean, that map was telling kids like me I wasn't the only one with family in the war.

Miss Gossim never got mad. Most she'd ever do was
look at you sort of sad eyed and say, “Howie, I'm
very
disappointed.” 'Course, if she said it, you'd feel worse than a Giants fan in Ebbets Field. I mean, I'd have done anything to get her smile back.

Rolanda was her first name. I heard the school secretary, Mrs. Partridge, call her that. I knew it must be true because she and Miss Gossim were friends. I never heard that name before. But to me, that name,
Rolanda
, was so magic I kept it to myself. Didn't even tell Denny, who, like I said, was my bestest friend with our secret pact about not having secrets. The thing was, when it came to Miss Gossim, things were different.

At night when I was in bed and the lights were out in the room which I shared with my kid sister, Gloria, I'd get to thinking about Denny's dad, or how hard Mom was working at the Navy Yard, or like I said, my math. Or, most of all, I'd worry about Pop sailing by Nazi wolf packs loaded with torpedoes just waiting to ambush him.

Thing is, to get all that stuff out of my head I'd pretend a smiling, perfume-smelling Miss Gossim was leaning over me. Understand? She was my emergency brake, my life raft, my parachute, my own private rescue squad.

“Good-night, Howie Crispers,” she'd whisper into my
ear.

And I'd look up into those blue-gray eyes of hers and whisper, “Good-night, Rolanda Gossim.”

Then,
wham
, like magic, them submarines would sink. The war stopped, Pop was safe, and I could sleep.

Only now Dr. Lomister was going to fire her.

ANYWAY, THERE I WAS
, in this long, narrow hallway of the brownstone. The only light was coming from a window at the other end. The ceiling was high with some kind of leafy-design plaster molding. On the wall, blue wallpaper with pictures of clouds and birds on it. Hanging from the middle of the ceiling was this chandelier with dangling bits of glass. The light was off.

Looking toward the other end of the hall, I saw the curvy tip of a banister. Which must have belonged to steps leading down. My escape, I figured, if I had to make tracks.

In the middle of the hallway—on the right—was a door. To an apartment, I guessed. At least, Dr. Lomister's voice
was coming out from behind it.

Another voice—a lady's—said, “What possible reason is there to fire her?”

“Wilma, I'm not free to say” came Lomister's voice again. “Just take my word for it. She must leave.”

I crept closer.

“Gilbert, didn't you tell me that this Gossim woman was one of your best teachers?”

“Teachers,” Lomister said, like he was the local Mussolini or something, “must follow rules too.”

“Can you find a replacement?”

“We'll manage.”

“And what about the children? Will this upset them?”

“They won't care. A teacher is a teacher.”

I cracked my knuckles.

“Well, since you've requested it, I suppose I'm willing to act,” this Wilma went on. “How much notice are you going to give her?”

“One week. Next Monday will be her last day.”

“Gilbert, isn't this unusual? It certainly hasn't happened since I've come on the job. And in the middle of the term. Plus, I must admit, I'm curious. For you to come here at this hour—”

“It's a very personal matter, Wilma. I have no desire to embarrass the young woman. Besides, she and my secretary are close friends. And may I remind you, there's a war on. Strict moral standards must be adhered to. We must show the children that everybody—even adults—follows established rules.”

So this Wilma ups and says, “Very well, Gilbert—if you wish it. I'll send someone to your office this morning with the paperwork.”

“It'll be best—”

Now I was listening so hard my big ears were almost inside the apartment. So the second I realized Lomister was coming out, I tore to the end of the hall and dove back into the dumbwaiter. I was just reaching out to pull the door shut when the voices got louder, like they were in the hallway. I snapped my hand in.

“Thank you for coming by,” the woman said.

“Wilma,” Dr. Lomister said, “I do apologize for coming so early.”

“I'll take care of things,” the woman said. Then she said, “Oh, dear. That dumbwaiter door is open. It'll make the hall smell.”

“I'll fix it,” Dr. Lomister said.

I made a grab at one of the ropes dangling before me and yanked. Instead of going down, the dumbwaiter went up.
Bang!
It smashed into the top of the shaft. I grabbed the second rope with both hands and pulled. This time the dumbwaiter went right. As I dropped, the door above me slammed shut. Everything went dark again.